by Jen Black
She rolled and tied the shawl around her shoulders and flung her heavy wool cloak over the top. It would make her look like a hunchbacked witch, but maybe that was not a bad thing tonight. Trailing her fingertips along the stone walls so as not to lose her way, she ventured downstairs towards the storerooms beneath the kitchen where the blackness seemed thicker than ever.
Harry had promised he would come on the fourth day. Something must have delayed him. Her marriage to John was due in a few hours, and there had been no sign that Sir Reynold’s death would delay the ceremony. If she did not go now, she would find herself John Errington’s bride, and should Harry ride through the gate five minutes after she’d said her vows, it would be too late. At least this way she would gain a day or two’s respite. She could not hide out at Grey House for ever, she knew that. But surely those two precious days would bring Harry to Aydon.
Her stomach quaked at the thought of her father’s rage, her mother’s recriminations and the displeasure of the Errington family. An image of John flashed into her mind. Her palms flattened against the wall, and she hesitated between one step and the next. He would be hurt and for that she was truly sorry.
She reached the last step. Warm air met her, and the stink of beasts penned inside for the night. Edging towards the opposite wall, one hand against the stone and the other held out in front of her, she moved towards the side door and prayed that she would not walk into a cow in the darkness. Beasts moved restlessly, sensing her presence even if they could not see her. A cow bellowed, and Alina’s heart leapt to her throat as the sound reverberated around the stone byre.
The old wooden door creaked as it turned on the socket pins. She cringed, for it too sounded overloud in the stillness of the night. She stepped over the stone sill and turned to bar the door.
And realised she could not do it. Faced with a blank wooden door, she dithered.
It was a cardinal sin to leave a door unlocked. She might be leaving a way open for marauders to gain entry to the house and murder everyone in their beds. Laying her forehead against the old oak, she closed her eyes, said a swift prayer and turned toward the gate.
A horse shifted in the nearby stable as she picked her way past the old lodging house and stepped onto the beaten earth of the courtyard. A dark pool of shadow surrounded the well and then the gate loomed in the curtain wall not far ahead.
She took a deep breath. A dark figure stood above the exit arch in the curtain wall. It would be Matho, watching out for her. The massive wooden doors stood ajar and he would secure it behind her, since she could not lift the huge drawbar.
Matho would probably check the door into the storeroom, too, and she felt better for the thought. She slipped through the narrow gap and gasped as cold wind blustered around her ankles and slapped her cheek. For a moment she stood there, undecided.
This was madness.
The lane to Halton showed as a lighter ribbon through the shadows before it disappeared beneath the trees. The squat, cosy hind’s cottage stood in darkness on her left, and the bushes before the door shook and rattled in the wind.
Madness or not, she had to go. Pulling her cloak tight against her throat, she hurried to the crossroads. The undulating land rose towards Grey House, snug and protected below the old Roman Wall. Open fields all the way, with only the odd scattered tree to give shade to the beasts in summer. Fields she had run, walked and skipped across all through childhood; yet the thought of striking out on her own, in the middle of the night, made her stomach curl into a tiny ball of fear.
With Lance and Cuddy at her side, she would have thought nothing of it, would have comforted Cuddy if he did not like the rustling darkness. If she could have done it with them at her side, she could do it alone.
The sharp wind tugged her cloak and frisked her skirt about her ankles. She glanced back at the gate, but the solitary figure of Matho had vanished.
She really was on her own.
Alina set her teeth, clawed her cloak tight around her and thought of Harry. She wanted to be free when he came back for her. If he came back. The words curled out of her innermost thoughts without warning. Her heart plunged. What if he never came? What if he had only amused himself with her? What would she do? Her father’s wrath would boil over and everyone would condemn her as a jilt and a harlot.
The voice of doubt was relentless. What did she really know of Harry Scott? He was nothing more than a kiss in St Andrew’s church and a promise made in the heat of the moment.
The wind mocked her as it hissed through the long grass by her feet. If she called out, Matho would let her back in. It wasn’t too late. If she could creep out, she could creep back in. No one would know, except Matho.
She turned and looked back at the gate. It represented safety, security and family warmth. She bit her lip. It also represented marriage to John, a lifetime of regrets if Harry came riding up tomorrow and found her married to another. It was nothing but cowardice that made her think of returning. She was afraid of the dark, of venturing alone across fields she’d known all her life.
Or was she afraid to admit that Harry might not arrive and claim her?
She gritted her teeth. If she returned to Aydon now it would be as good as declaring Harry to be nothing more than an untrustworthy knave, a liar and worse.
Pride came to her rescue; pride, and from somewhere deep within, a warm, stubborn, deep belief in Harry. Fists clenched, she ducked her head and struck out in the full force of the wind, heading northeast for Grey House.
The wind and darkness ruled the meadows. Her glance leapt from undergrowth to hedgerow as shadows danced, trees rustled, branches creaked and groaned. Her cloak thrummed in the wind and tore at her throat. Panting and struggling over the uneven tufts of grass, she struggled uphill. At least the effort kept her warm.
So much for summer nights in the Borders. Caught in a strange region somewhere between fear and laughter, she clambered over the last stile, unsure of her footing in the shadows and saw the welcome sight of the long, low farmhouse straight ahead. Breathing a sigh of relief, she plunged towards it. Once inside, she would be safe. Soon she would snuggle up in front of a fire.
It would have to be a small fire. She wanted no keen eye spotting the glow across the dark countryside. If the local farm hind noticed, he would feel obliged to tell her father’s hind that beggars had invaded Grey House and then men armed with pitchforks and spears would arrive to shift the unwelcome visitors.
At the door, she fumbled in her pocket for the large iron key and groped for the keyhole. The lock had always been stiff. Grey House was comfortable and spacious. There were four bedrooms upstairs and hers caught the sun first thing on a morning. Tonight she would snuggle up in her old familiar bed.
The recalcitrant key finally clicked over.
Cold, still air met her on the kitchen threshold. Eager to be out of the wind, she stepped inside, shut the door and gazed across the dark kitchen. The brooding silence of the old house enclosed her. Somewhere close at hand a beam creaked. Her skin prickled as she stared into the blackness. The house had been empty since May, when Sir Reynold fell ill.
It smelled peculiar. The usual warm, appetising smell of freshly made bread no longer permeated the kitchen. Now only the faint, acrid tang of wood smoke lingered on the air. Her skin prickled and the hair rose on the back of her neck. Perhaps this had not been such a good idea.
She groped her way to the kitchen table and on to the fireplace. Mama’s rule was that the tinderbox must stay in the square recess on the left of the vast stone hearth and that the box should hold flint, steel and tinder.
Alina found the recess and groaned. No box, no tinder. That meant no fire. Her fingertips traced the rough edges of stone back to the farthest corner. At last, her fingers encountered wood. She grasped the box and sank to the hearthstone.
Countless times she had watched mother heat the char cloth and dry, powdered bark from birch trees until it was ready to burn, and then scoop it out into the ti
nderbox and snap the lid down. She had always thought it a useless exercise. Now, faced with the difficulty of lighting a fire for the first time in her life, she appreciated her mother’s effort.
The basket of kindling, still half full, sat at the side of the hearth. Ignoring the thought of the spiders and mice that might have set up residence in the family’s absence, she delved into it for small sticks and twigs.
The wind whined and sent cold air swirling down the chimney, found the gap where her cloak met her neck. The darkness behind her held a sinister quality. A swift glance over her shoulder was hardly enough and not at all reassuring.
Oh, if only Harry were here. With the comforting warmth of his solid body at her side, she would have no worries about the darkness, or the cold.
She placed the tinderbox on the hearthstone, arranged the char cloth and kindling and picked up the flint. She struck it against the steel until sparks fell on the fuel, and a tiny flame curled into life. She hovered over it, fed it and did not dare leave it.
Only when she was certain the fire was well and truly alight did she get to her feet. Her knees cracked after crouching so long on the cold stones.
The flickering firelight picked out the big kitchen table, a dulled copper kettle and a few odd bits of pewter sitting on the shelves. Almost everything had gone to Aydon.
She unfastened her cloak and shawl, put her bread and cheese to one side and then slung the shawl round her shoulders again. Her face was warm from the fire, but the creeping cold had her shivering three paces from the hearth. She went to the stone cupboard and took out a handful of tallow candles, looked at them and then put them back. Somehow she could not face the reek of tallow tonight. She extracted one tall beeswax candle, took it to the fire and lit it.
She added another handful of sticks to the flames, moved to the door in the corner and lifted the sneck. The wooden stairs, deep inside the house, seemed colder and darker than the kitchen. The candle flickered. She shielded the flame until it steadied and then went up. A damp cold enveloped her, made her shiver. Perhaps she would sleep downstairs after all. A blanket from her bed would keep her cosy in the big wooden chair pulled close to the kitchen fire, and she could sleep there till daylight.
At the top of the stairs a small window shed pale ghostly light across the boards. The silence stretched out around her, so thick and heavy the air vibrated in her ears. Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, her heart thudded very fast and she lifted the candle higher. Once there had been the sound and scent of people and laughter. Now there was naught but the creak of a floorboard beneath her feet and the wind gusting around the eaves.
She longed for the sound of Lance and Cuddy galloping up the stairs behind her. Even the sound of her mother’s voice remonstrating with the cook over one of her receipts in the kitchen would have cheered her.
If Harry were here, the darkness would be an ally rather than an enemy. The threatening shadows would soon be forgotten in the warmth of his embrace. Would she feel nervous or strange, taking Harry into her bedroom? She was not ignorant of what happened between a man and woman once they were wed, but the thought of sharing a bed with him roused shudders of anticipation, a tingling excitement and a tiny frisson of fear.
She walked to her bedroom door, lifted the latch and gazed around in shocked dismay. It was empty. The weak light of her candle shuddered across the bare, dusty boards and at first she thought she’d walked into the wrong room. Then she remembered, with a pang of disappointment. Her featherbed, bolster and blankets were at Aydon now.
All she had to keep her warm was her cloak.
Chapter Sixteen
Harry crossed the River Eden on Thursday morning and rode alongside the old Roman Wall towards Walton, happy in the thought that he would soon see Alina. His brief time masquerading as Harry Scott was over, and he was pleased to let the deception go. It had proved an adventure that almost cost his life.
He caught sight of the austere red stones of Lanercost Priory nestled among the trees in the valley bottom not long before his horse cast a shoe. Swearing at the delay, he dismounted and walked Bessie down the hill, certain that Thomas Dacre, who owned the place along with nearby Naworth, would have a resident blacksmith. Like Sir Reynold Carnaby and many others up and down the land, Dacre had profited from the Dissolution in 1536.
Walking beneath the arch, Harry glanced around. The three hundred year old Priory church was shut and bolted, but work had already begun on its adjacent buildings. A handsome residence might be what Dacre wanted, but the local people would resent the loss of their church. Still, they would not openly defy their lords.
Harry, like his father, had a practical turn of mind. He had no argument with Dacre or anyone who benefited from the Dissolution, even though he sometimes missed the warmth of the old religion. Being allowed to read the Bible, in English, did not in his opinion compensate for the loss of a the monasteries, and he imagined few country folk had ever bothered to learn the skill of reading.
He didn’t feel strongly about it, as some did. So he wandered on, looking about him with interest, left his horse at the smithy, and had himself announced. He shared an excellent dinner with Dacre and his family, rose early and headed east next morning after an excellent breakfast.
Riding back up to the ridge where the going was dry and firm, Harry whistled happily and tunelessly as he followed the Stanegate across Haltwhistle Common. The day was bright and calm, with little wind. Stone farmhouses squatted in hollows and clefts beside streams, cannily out of the wind that swept down from the ridge both summer and winter.
Over to his right rose the Westmorland Fells and the North Pennine Hills where notorious reiving families lived among those wild slopes. Families whose names ran like a litany through his mind: Charltons, Bells, Forsters, Grahams, Musgraves and Storeys.
All through his Cumbrian childhood the riding families, the names to watch, had been dinned into him. They remained with him still, though his years in the south of England had dulled his appreciation of the code and culture of the Borderland. His meeting with Carnaby had reminded him how troublesome the place could be.
To speak of a family being on the road was to tell your neighbour a raid was in progress. The merest whisper that the Armstrongs were riding had everyone rushing their animals into the bastle or byre with enough food and water to last a few days until the raid was over. Dour farmers up and down the Borders knew the families that were said to be ever riding since they spent so little time by their own hearths.
Harry shifted in the saddle and looked to the north where the land rolled away in green-brown swathes, dipping and rising towards the blue arch of the sky. Tufts of bog cotton waved miniature banners on the breeze. Brown sedge vied with emerald moss and endless small streams wound through the heather hags. Stunted hazel and alder clustered the slopes and thorns leaned with the prevailing wind.
The land rose over the hump of the Pennines and then sloped down to the east and the North Sea. By the time he approached the junction of the North and South Tyne, it occurred to him that it would be good to have a wife from the area, one who knew the ways of the Borderlands. Any girl born and raised in the soft south would hate the harshness of life in this part of the world and most likely live in constant fear of a raid. He headed towards the ford, happy in the knowledge that he would soon see Alina and whisk her away from the threatened marriage to staid John Errington.
He rode wearily into Corbridge that evening, fought his way through the crowded tavern and demanded ale. The chubby landlord thumped a brimming tankard before him and watched Harry drain half of it.
“The place is busy tonight,” Harry remarked, gazing around the small room.
“Oh, aye, it is that, right enough.”
“Something special today?”
The landlord grabbed empty tankards from nearby tables and clutched them against his soiled linen shirt. “Special? Aye, you could say that, lad. Sir Reynold Carnaby died yesterday morn.”
“Oh.” Harry’s thumb gestured at the happy faces around them. “At a guess, I’d say Sir Reynold will not be missed, then?”
“He won’t.” He nodded to the revellers. “They’re all laughing because it was ganna be his niece’s wedding day and the lassie’s upped and vanished.”
Harry’s mouth dropped open. The man was talking about Alina.
The inn-keeper’s gaze switched to someone behind Harry.
“Ah’ve been lookin’ for ye all bloody day, man.”
Harry recognised the voice before he swung round. Sure enough, a stocky, red-haired man stood at his elbow and glared at him.
“Matho,” he said. “What’s going on? You look fit to burst.”
“Carnaby arranged to marry the lass off to John Errington from Sandhoe. T’was to be today, but she took off in the dead o’ night, awaitin’ on ye, and I’m to tak ye to ’er. If’n ye’ve got the time.” Matho cocked one challenging eyebrow. “Did ye forget the date?”
“Jesu!” Rapidly calculating days, Harry’s heart sank. “Matho, my horse cast a shoe. If I’m late, it’s only by a day!”
Matho gave him a sour look. “Ay, well, it wasna a good time to be late.”
Harry downed his ale in one long swallow, abandoned the tankard and got to his feet in the same movement. “Well?” He gestured to the door. “Let’s talk outside.”
They strolled to the pant on the opposite side of the rutted lane. Harry seized the handle and pumped hard, cupped his palms beneath the torrent of cold water and splashed his face. Shaking his hands dry, he turned to Matho. “Well, where is she now?”
“She’s up at Grey House, where they used to live. So far, Carnaby’s not twigged where she’s at, but it won’t tak him ower long to guess.”
“How long has she been there?”
“Most o’ last night and today. I haven’t been in case someone trailed me. I’ve got food to tak wi ye. She won’t have much left by now.”
Matho’s directions proved good. Harry walked through the gathering dusk into the farmyard at the back of Grey House and whistled the tune Greensleeves as plaintively as he could manage. It had been Matho’s final instruction. “Mak sure ye dinna forgettin’, either, or like as not she’ll skewer ye wi an arra. That’s if she’s got her bow wi ’er.”